Shattered Silver
by Kari Anna
Summary: One-shot. DEATHFIC. You have been warned. The voice that tormented his father before him has taken to doing the same to Harry, but Harry refuses to succumb to it.


This title has been stuck in my head for literally over two years now, and the idea for the story to go with it just hit me like a ton of bricks while I was working on chapter six of _Numb_. So, here's a little one-shot for your enjoyment.

DISCLAIMER: Spider-Man isn't mine, nor is Harry, played by the drop-dead gorgeous James Franco :) Too bad...

**Shattered Silver**

Harry screamed, clutching his ears as if that could possibly block out the insane cackle that seemed to permeate not only his late father's study, but his own body. He could swear he felt it in every little molecule of him, driving lunacy into him by force. Someone screamed, "STOP!"

He looked around. It had to have been him; him or the voice, and it couldn't have been the voice because _it_ hadn't stopped laughing since it had started over a half hour ago. Harry sank to the thin, stylish carpet. _Why don't I just give up?_ he thought miserably, his hands moving from his ears to his temples. His head hurt, and he was tired, and that asshole voice claiming to be his father was driving him up a wall. Not literally, of course.

Something wet spilled down his face. Tears, tears. His father had always insisted he was weak, and here he was, proving it again. The voice beginning to taunt him about it with _obvious_ amusement didn't help any either. He buried his face in his arms as he sat in an almost fetal position on the increasingly uncomfortable carpet in the study. He didn't know why, but he felt the need to hide his shameful weakness from the voice. Maybe because it said it was his father... not that Harry would ever believe that. He wasn't sure he believed in any form of afterlife, much less ghosts.

_It'd be just like that bastard though._

Haunting and traumatizing his son was not something Harry thought was beneath Norman. Given the chance, he was pretty damn sure the man would take it. Why couldn't he just _love_ his son like a normal parent? There was nothing he could think of that he would not give up to have had a father who actually showed some signs of caring for him. Other, of course, than attempting to murder his best friend. What the hell had Norman been thinking? Maybe the voice had been too much for him.

That damned voice. Harry knew where it came from. It was those goddamn chemicals his dad was always toying with. The green fluid he'd found in those bottles when he broke the mirror. That _stuff_, whatever it was, was what had brought the voice into existence. Harry was sure of it. Norman had been flustered and very tense over possibly losing a big deal with somebody or other important... he hadn't paid much attention during his dad's spiel about the importance of it. That was when things had changed. His dad was just... different. Sure there was the fact that he spent more time away from home, or in his study when he was home... but that wasn't it. Nor was the sudden mood swings and almost constant dishevelled look that were so out of character for the usually level-headed, debonair businessman.

The look of madness in his eyes... a spark of something inhuman and cold.

Harry sighed as he shifted his gaze to the disaster area in front of where the mirror had been. Little shards of silvery glass were strewn all over the place. He'd bring in a broom, dustpan and vacuum eventually. He didn't want anyone else to see the cataclysm of the insanity his dad had been drawn into. Vaguely, he wondered in the back of his mind whether that was more for himself or the sake of his father's reputation.

It didn't matter. The voice continued its dizzying, almost hypnotic cackling. Harry tried to ignore it as he continued to stare at the bits of broken glass. The sun was moving down toward the horizon, and the shattered silver caught the sunlight just right, making rainbow rays starburst from each piece. It was beautiful. _Maybe I won't clean it up..._

He crawled toward the glass, and for a moment he felt dismay when the change of angle made the multicolored reflections vanish. The shattered mirror had its own appeal though. _Never thought about how pretty a mirror can be, before._ Harry set one hand on the floor to hold himself up off of it as he sat on his side, all stretched out. He sucked in a breath suddenly when pain registered in him, and he realized tiny sharp bits of glass were digging into his palm. Then, looking at the bigger pieces of silver around him, he decided it was worth it. Beauty always came with pain.

He ran a finger along a side of one of the larger shards. It hurt. The glass was sharp enough to draw a nice line of warm red blood from the finger he'd used. He stared at it for a moment, captivated as more oozed out. It didn't run right down like it always did in the movies, a neat, straight little rivulet. It formed a tiny puddle around the cut, no ryhme or reason to it that Harry could see. _Gotta get a Band-Aid on it. Neosporin too. _But he didn't budge. Like that first moment of reluctance to move in the morning, because moving meant giving up Elysium, the land of dreams for the waking world.

Then with lazy, languid movements, Harry picked up the large piece of glass he had cut himself on. The voice still wouldn't stop laughing._ How can anything sound so cold and inhuman? _He regarded the glass in his hand. Maybe this mirror was a way for him to do something right after all. The voice wouldn't win. When he was dead, someone would clean up the pieces of glass, but no one was there to pick up the pieces his mind fallen to. So to keep the voice from winning--

There was a vague feeling on his wrist, more of a tickle than an ache. _So this is what suicide feels like,_ Harry thought detachedly. He didn't end the cut until it was nearly all the way from the crease between his palm and wrist, to his elbow. _To be safe; to make sure I die. No way in hell would I do what that lunatic wants._ Then the other forearm. He shut his eyes. He was a little bit squeamish, but it was so he wouldn't have to watch himself die, more than anything. _Huh. I can commit suicide, but I can't watch the blood. That's ironic._

Life quickly ebbed away from Harry Osborn, as he lay amid the ruins of the mirror.

**G-G-G**

Goblin smiled, keeping a tight grip on the hand of his first victim. Now he would have the son as well.

Ignoring the man's pleas not to do this to his child, Goblin waited patiently. It had to be done at _just_ the right time, or the boy would live on in charge of his own mind or die. _There!_ The boy's pulse was all but gone, and he'd just stopped breathing. The monster had tormented the boy much longer than his father. The boy was strong. But he wouldn't be strong enough to stop the Goblin's control, now that his spirit was gone.

Goblin moved quickly, and breathed new life into the boy before moving into his body, taking full possession.

The body of the dead young man sat up. And smirked...

**End.**


End file.
